Publications
2010
Protopapas, Athanassios; Tzakosta, Μ; Chalamandaris, Aimilios; Tsiakoulis, Pirros
IPLR: an online resource for Greek word-level and sublexical information Journal Article
In: Language Resources & Evaluation, 2010.
@article{Protopapas2010,
title = {IPLR: an online resource for Greek word-level and sublexical information},
author = {Athanassios Protopapas and Μ Tzakosta and Aimilios Chalamandaris and Pirros Tsiakoulis},
url = {http://speech.ilsp.gr/synthesis/publications},
year = {2010},
date = {2010-01-01},
journal = {Language Resources & Evaluation},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Seitz, Aaron; Protopapas, Athanassios; Tsushima, Yoshiaki; Vlachou, Eleni; Gori, Simone; Grossberg, Stephen; Watanabe, Takeo
Unattended exposure to components of speech sounds yields same benefits as explicit auditory training Journal Article
In: Cognition, vol. 115, no. 3, pp. 435-443, 2010.
@article{Seitzetal2010,
title = {Unattended exposure to components of speech sounds yields same benefits as explicit auditory training},
author = {Aaron Seitz and Athanassios Protopapas and Yoshiaki Tsushima and Eleni Vlachou and Simone Gori and Stephen Grossberg and Takeo Watanabe},
doi = {10.1016/j.cognition.2010.03.004},
year = {2010},
date = {2010-01-01},
journal = {Cognition},
volume = {115},
number = {3},
pages = {435-443},
abstract = {Learning a second language as an adult is particularly effortful when new phonetic representations must be formed. Therefore the processes that allow learning of speech sounds are of great theoretical and practical interest. Here we examined whether perception of single formant transitions, that is, sound components critical in speech perception, can be enhanced through an implicit task-irrelevant learning procedure that has been shown to produce visual perceptual learning. The single-formant sounds were paired at subthreshold levels with the attended targets in an auditory identification task. Results showed that task-irrelevant learning occurred for the unattended stimuli. Surprisingly, the magnitude of this learning effect was similar to that following explicit training on auditory formant transition detection using discriminable stimuli in an adaptive procedure, whereas explicit training on the subthreshold stimuli produced no learning. These results suggest that in adults learning of speech parts can occur at least partially through implicit mechanisms.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Learning a second language as an adult is particularly effortful when new phonetic representations must be formed. Therefore the processes that allow learning of speech sounds are of great theoretical and practical interest. Here we examined whether perception of single formant transitions, that is, sound components critical in speech perception, can be enhanced through an implicit task-irrelevant learning procedure that has been shown to produce visual perceptual learning. The single-formant sounds were paired at subthreshold levels with the attended targets in an auditory identification task. Results showed that task-irrelevant learning occurred for the unattended stimuli. Surprisingly, the magnitude of this learning effect was similar to that following explicit training on auditory formant transition detection using discriminable stimuli in an adaptive procedure, whereas explicit training on the subthreshold stimuli produced no learning. These results suggest that in adults learning of speech parts can occur at least partially through implicit mechanisms.
Protopapas, Athanassios; Σκαλούμπακας, Χρήστος
Αυτοματοποιημένη ανίχνευση ορθογραφικών δυσκολιών Book Section
In: Μουζάκη, Α; Protopapas, Athanassios (Ed.): Ορθογραφία: μάθηση και διαταραχές, pp. 359–374, Gutenberg, Αθήνα, 2010.
@incollection{Protopapas&Skalumbakas2010,
title = {Αυτοματοποιημένη ανίχνευση ορθογραφικών δυσκολιών},
author = {Athanassios Protopapas and Χρήστος Σκαλούμπακας},
editor = {Α Μουζάκη and Athanassios Protopapas},
year = {2010},
date = {2010-01-01},
booktitle = {Ορθογραφία: μάθηση και διαταραχές},
pages = {359–374},
publisher = {Gutenberg},
address = {Αθήνα},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {incollection}
}
2009
Protopapas, Athanassios; Vlachou, Eleni
A comparative, quantitative analysis of Greek orthographic transparency Journal Article
In: Behavior Research Methods, vol. 41, pp. 991-1008, 2009.
@article{Protopapas2009,
title = {A comparative, quantitative analysis of Greek orthographic transparency},
author = {Athanassios Protopapas and Eleni Vlachou},
doi = {10.3758/BRM.41.4.991},
year = {2009},
date = {2009-01-01},
journal = {Behavior Research Methods},
volume = {41},
pages = {991-1008},
abstract = {Orthographic transparency refers to the systematicity in the mapping between orthographic letter sequences and phonological phoneme sequences in both directions, for reading and spelling. Measures of transparency previously used in the analysis of orthographies of other languages include regularity, consistency, and entropy. However, previous reports have typically been hampered by severe restrictions, such as using only monosyllables or only word-initial phonemes. Greek is sufficiently transparent to allow complete sequential alignment between graphemes and phonemes, therefore permitting full analyses at both letter and grapheme levels, using every word in its entirety. Here, we report multiple alternative measures of transparency, using both type and token counts, and compare these with estimates for other languages. We discuss the problems stemming from restricted analysis sets and the implications for psycholinguistic experimentation and computational modeling of reading and spelling.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Orthographic transparency refers to the systematicity in the mapping between orthographic letter sequences and phonological phoneme sequences in both directions, for reading and spelling. Measures of transparency previously used in the analysis of orthographies of other languages include regularity, consistency, and entropy. However, previous reports have typically been hampered by severe restrictions, such as using only monosyllables or only word-initial phonemes. Greek is sufficiently transparent to allow complete sequential alignment between graphemes and phonemes, therefore permitting full analyses at both letter and grapheme levels, using every word in its entirety. Here, we report multiple alternative measures of transparency, using both type and token counts, and compare these with estimates for other languages. We discuss the problems stemming from restricted analysis sets and the implications for psycholinguistic experimentation and computational modeling of reading and spelling.
Vlachou, Eleni; Protopapas, Athanassios; Seitz, A
Implicit learning of non-native stimuli Proceedings Article
In: Πρακτικά του συνεδρίου "157th Meeting of The Acoustical Society of America", pp. 2763-2764, Acoustical Society of America Acoustical Society of America, Portland, OR, US, 2009.
@inproceedings{Vlachouetal2009,
title = {Implicit learning of non-native stimuli},
author = {Eleni Vlachou and Athanassios Protopapas and A Seitz},
url = {http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JASMAN000125000004002763000006&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes},
year = {2009},
date = {2009-00-01},
urldate = {2009-00-01},
booktitle = {Πρακτικά του συνεδρίου "157th Meeting of The Acoustical Society of America"},
volume = {125},
pages = {2763-2764},
publisher = {Acoustical Society of America},
address = {Portland, OR, US},
organization = {Acoustical Society of America},
abstract = {Previous studies have induced robust adult learning of non-native natural speech stimuli using explicit instructions and feedback. Here, Greek adults were exposed to non-native Hindi phonemes for six sessions in which they were unaware of the phoneme distinctions and the phonemes had no relevance to their main task. Stimuli were natural recordings of CV syllables (a retroflex or dental unvoiced stop followed by [a]) from a Hindi speaker. On each trial, participants heard two identical dental sounds and two retroflex sounds differing in intensity by an adaptively varied amount between 0.5–3 dB. The explicit task was to identify which pair differed in intensity, while the implicit learning goal was the phonetic contrast. After training, participants were tested on explicit phonetic identification and discrimination of trained and untrained stimuli spoken by the same and a novel speaker. The trained group outperformed an untrained group who were administered the same tests. Our results are compatible with a perceptual learning model where task-irrelevant stimuli (Hindi sounds) are learned due to a systematic pairing with task targets (intensity difference). Learning did not extend to the novel speaker, in agreement with previous studies showing that variability in training is crucial for generalization.},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
Previous studies have induced robust adult learning of non-native natural speech stimuli using explicit instructions and feedback. Here, Greek adults were exposed to non-native Hindi phonemes for six sessions in which they were unaware of the phoneme distinctions and the phonemes had no relevance to their main task. Stimuli were natural recordings of CV syllables (a retroflex or dental unvoiced stop followed by [a]) from a Hindi speaker. On each trial, participants heard two identical dental sounds and two retroflex sounds differing in intensity by an adaptively varied amount between 0.5–3 dB. The explicit task was to identify which pair differed in intensity, while the implicit learning goal was the phonetic contrast. After training, participants were tested on explicit phonetic identification and discrimination of trained and untrained stimuli spoken by the same and a novel speaker. The trained group outperformed an untrained group who were administered the same tests. Our results are compatible with a perceptual learning model where task-irrelevant stimuli (Hindi sounds) are learned due to a systematic pairing with task targets (intensity difference). Learning did not extend to the novel speaker, in agreement with previous studies showing that variability in training is crucial for generalization.